Quad ESL owners question

One of my friends who own the ESL 63 liked alot my old Harbeth C7ESII while he absolutely doesn't like my Thiel 2.4

Sound Lab

I had the 2805's for several years and loved them, but reliability issues forced me to sell before they turned into larger repair problems.

I have replaced them with the new Martin Logan Spires and have not looked back. The Spires have all the transparency, openness and midrange detail of the Quads, with better dynamics and real bass impact. Martin Logan reliability and customer service is an important consideration for me as well.

I have Magnepan 2.7s as well as the ESLs.

They all sound different. Quads are a pain in the ass and have a very small sweetspot. On the other hand...

You'll get some of the dispersion qualities from other dipoles but the imaging is different on different speakers. I don't really think quads sound natural as much as they sound musical.

I think you will get a similar type of musicality out of some of the english speakers like the spendors and maybe out of some di-poles. The phase coheerence is more like a dunlavy but the freq is night and day different.

If you like the quad midrange, try some ls3/5a's or spendor 3/5's as well as looking into other planar speakers.